Former secretary sues city over alleged harassment

Published 1:00 am, Wednesday, December 8, 2004

DANBURY - The former secretary to the city's chief of police is suing the city, claiming police brass harassed her into retirement after she accused them of age discrimination.

Kathy Sophia
said she was subjected to derogatory remarks and sexual innuendo from ranking officers, including former Chief
Robert Paquette
, after she and several other department clerks, most over the age of 50, complained to the state
Commission on Human Rights
over a raise given to a younger female employee.

The CHRO dismissed Sophia's complaint last year, but she subsequently filed a lawsuit, elaborating on the alleged harassment. She maintained city officials forced her to leave her job last June, even though she'd changed her mind about retirement and expressed a desire to continue working.

Paquette, who filed his own retirement papers earlier this year, allegedly called Sophia, now 64, an "old coot" and an "old goat," and failed to stop the harassment directed against her by other ranking members of the department, according to the suit she filed last month in Danbury Superior Court.

On several occasions, according to the lawsuit, Capt.
Arthur Sullo
made explicit sexual comments when discussing the raise that was given to the younger woman, but denied to Sophia and the older clerks.

"By inference, I received unfair treatment because I was not considered young or sexually attractive or willing to tolerate sexually explicit references," she said in the suit.

The CHRO complaints were filed in October 2003, after
Susan Yager
, a clerk-typist in the detective bureau, applied for and received a pay increase under a provision of the union contract that permits employees to seek more money if their work duties expand beyond what they were originally hired to do.